a spreading of wings, a bating of breath, a sense of something coming

今日の終わりごろ

My head is full of thoughts, questions, things I am sure and not sure of at the same time.

Everything today is in 英語。

Moments of 日本語 are the same as moments of 緑 (greenery). From the train, it speeds by in a vague green-colored blur. My eyes catch on a glint – the silver lining of rusted tracks. A smear of white inside bars of dried-blood red.

The window is covered in stickers and fingerprints of strangers. Millions of hands have been here, sweating, touching, reaching. The oil from my skin spreads across layers of patterns as I lean, waiting for my station to come.

There, I will do the same things I do every day. Revisiting the same places, seeing the same faces. In a sea of 130 million ants, I get to know the look of the ones in my borough, even though we have nothing to do with each other. I wonder how that affects our consciousness. I have no good gauge to judge such things.

In a room with people I live amongst, we get close enough to almost touch. I wonder if the space between us vibrates your stings like it does mine. I stir and shift. For half a drunken second, our eyes meet without reason. Is this the beginning or the end of something? Or is it just another random moment in a meaningless string of many?

I wake and think of those I used to touch. The ones who knew (know?) me most. The ones who don’t say phrases like, “You have to admit that men and women are different.” The ones who kept me when I had lost my way. The ones I long to have back again.

But stars in lanterns, as we know, eventually burn out. And stars aren’t made of hardwood, so the ash they leave behind is useless to us. Only a memento of the light we used to know.

Nothing more doing.

I find myself missing that light in this long dark night. Craving the warmth of it as we laid, elbow to elbow on our backs, staring up at the splatter of stars making the arms of our galaxy. Did we know, at the time, our lines were separating?

I wish these silver lined tracks ran in circles back to you. I wish they could tie my multifarious sides into one thing. One life.

But I know they lead into the heart of a place you have never been and will not go. So, I go alone and hope to find others with a similar heart.

How does it look? Well, for one: the stranger I hoped to know got up mid-conversation and walked out. So, it doesn’t look too good ney?

I am, on my back, splayed out as if the world delivered me a hard hit. Straight to the face. And bloodied, I sit down in the grass. Look up. There is no-one to talk to but the stars.